Sometimes I wonder why I’m cleaning up and posting this belated juvenilia. Doing this teenie fan parody stuff in my ‘20s. With the whoopee cushion humor meeting with the profane.

Besides, outside of Star Truck, the opportunity really to do this sort of thing just wasn’t there in my teens in backwood s Soldier, Iowa.

Also note the carburetor and other Hot Rod jargon incongruously mixed with Skiffy Techno Babble. Probably because I did spend the previous summer figuring out Mr. Holley’s four-barrel. The Tuck & Roll interiors in these flying saucers are also a big obvious nod to Kustom Kar Kulture.

Cruisin’ in my Turbocharged Pinto years later, I just have to wonder:whyare gearheads so rare in a SF fandom that prone to technological daydreams? 1982 did have the sorry excuse that the period’s fandom was a bit dominated by “Frodo Lives” holdouts from the ‘70s. The mechanized just wasn’t so mellow or magical, man.

There was the lost opportunity in some of these Naugahyde upholstered panels, especially the fourth one, for some dynamic and detailed bravura boiler-riveting if I had realized back then to do more than just busk them out quick and dirty. Or at least use them as an opportunity for a technique builder to inch my way there.